SUPERCOILED TANGLES AND STICK NUMBERS OF 2-BRIDGE LINKS ERIK INSKO AND ROLLAND TRAPP Abstract. Utilizing both twisting and writhing, we construct in- tegral tangles with few sticks, leading to an efficient method for constructing polygonal 2-bridge links. Let L be a two bridge link with crossing number c, stick number s, and n tangles. It is shown 2 that s ≤ 3 c+2n+3. We also show that if c > 12n+3, then minimal stick representatives do not admit minimal crossing projections. Keywords: 2-bridge links, stick number, crossing number. Mathematics Subject Classification 2000: 57M25 1. Introduction The stick number s(L) of a link L is the fewest number of line seg- ments needed to represent L in piecewise-linear fashion. The crossing number c(L) is the fewest number of crossings in any diagram of L. The exact stick and crossing numbers of links are difficult to ascer- tain in general. The advent of knot polynomials, however, provided an effective tool for determining the crossing number of large classes of links. Knot polynomials were used to find the crossing number of alternating and adequate links [10, 15, 17, 11], as well as that of torus links (see [14]). Similarly, finding the precise stick number of classes of links is a arXiv:1308.0709v1 [math.GT] 3 Aug 2013 difficult task. This was accomplished for the family of torus links Lp;q, with 2 ≤ p ≤ q ≤ 2p by Jin in 1997 [8] and extended to 2p < q ≤ 3p in 2013 by Johnson, Mills, and Trapp [9]. The basic idea was to construct the link using few sticks, then show the construction to be optimal using the superbridge number. The stick numbers of Lp;p+1 torus knots, together with their compositions, were determined by Adams, Brennan, Greilsheimer, and Woo in 1997 [1], and those of Lp;2p+1 by Adams and Shayler in 2009 [2]. These results are obtained by again constructing the link efficiently, then using projections and total curvature (or bridge number) considerations to prove them optimal. In both cases, the lower bounds come from geometric properties of torus links. Thus the classes 1 2 ERIK INSKO AND ROLLAND TRAPP of links with known stick number are rare and enjoy specific geometric properties. In addition to stick numbers of torus links, upper bounds for the stick numbers of 2-bridge links have been the object of some study. In 1998, Furstenberg, Lie, and Schneider found that s(L) ≤ c(L)+2 for 2- bridge links with few tangles [6]. In the same year, McCabe found that s(L) ≤ c(L)+3 for arbitrary 2-bridge links, a considerable extension of results of Furstenberg et al. resulting from the addition of one stick [12]. McCabe then conjectured that her upper bound could be improved to c(L) + 2 and noted that her construction leads to minimal crossing projections. McCabe's conjecture was proven by Huh, No, and Oh in 2011, and their construction again produces polygonal representatives that admit minimal crossing projections [7]. Both McCabe and Huh et al. construct c-crossing polygonal tangles using c+1 sticks as in Figure 1. This approach arises naturally out of minimal crossing projections, and is reminiscent of DNA that is in \linear form" as described by Brauer, Crick, and White [3, p. 124]. The picture of supercoiled DNA in Figure 2 suggests an alternate construction. Figure 1. Existing construction of integral tangles Motivated by supercoiled DNA and the work of Johnson et al. for constructing polygonal cable links [9], we construct supercoiled inte- gral tangles. In the supercoiled situation both twisting and writhing contribute to the crossing number of a tangle, in contrast with Figure 1 where all crossings result from twisting. The result is a construction 2 that uses roughly 3 c sticks to build a c-crossing integral tangle, see Figure 5. These supercoiled tangles can be clipped together to construct polyg- onal rational links, which leads to improved upper bounds for stick numbers of 2-bridge links in Section 2. The main result of the paper, 2 Theorem 1, essentially shows that s(L) ≤ 3 c(L) + 2n + 3 for a 2-bridge link L with n tangles. An application of the improved bound is given in Section 3. Previous polygonal constructions of 2-bridge links admitted minimal crossing projections. In contrast, we use Theorem 1 to show SUPERCOILED TANGLES AND STICK NUMBERS OF 2-BRIDGE LINKS 3 Figure 2. Picture of supercoiling in DNA double helix and in the stick knot T2;15, [18]. that minimal stick representatives of 2-bridge links do not admit min- imal crossing projections when the crossing number is large relative to the number of tangles. 2. Upper Bounds for 2-Bridge Links In this section we describe a piecewise linear construction of super- coiled integral tangles and how to glue them together to build polygo- nal 2-bridge links. The result is an improved upper bound for the stick number of 2-bridge links with crossing number roughly six times the number of tangles or more. See Theorem 1 for a precise statement. In what follows we describe how to construct a supercoiled integral tangle with negative crossings. To construct one with positive cross- ings, simply take the mirror image of the ones constructed here. Start with a piecewise linear core and label the m + 2 edges e1; : : : ; em+2. Figure 3 shows such a core viewed from two different directions. We choose to index the edges with m + 2 since the first and last edges of the tangle have a free endpoint (see Remark 1 after Lemma 1 as well). Also, let vi denote the vertex at the intersection of ei and ei+1. We will add two new vertices oi and ui next to each vertex vi, and then we connect the oi's and ui's to create the polygonal strands of the tangle. The technique for placing the new vertices is now described, and is analogous to the construction of polygonal 2-cables used by Johnson et al. [9]. Figure 4 summarizes the description. The edges ei and ei+1 of the core determine a plane P . Let ` be the line bisecting the acute angle defined by ei and ei+1, and k be the line perpendicular to ` at vi in P . Let oi and ui be the two points on the line k that are distance away from the vertex vi. Rotate the line k slightly about the line ` so that it lies in a plane Q with oi over, and ui under, P in the projection direction z (see Figure 4). This determines the placement of the new vertices. 4 ERIK INSKO AND ROLLAND TRAPP Figure 3. Core of an integral tangle with writhe w = −m Figure 4. Adding the vertices oi and ui Now that the vertices have been placed, create the edges of the tangle by connecting oi to ui+1 and ui to oi+1. We remark that the distance from vi to the new vertices should be chosen small enough that the entire polygonal tangle lies inside an embedded tube around the core. This choice of , together with the relative positions of planes P and Q, imply that the tangle appears as in the first diagram of Figure 5. As in that figure, this piecewise linear tangle can be isotoped to a smooth integral tangle. Lemma 1. An integral tangle with c crossings can be made using s sticks, where 8 2 > 3 c + 4 c ≡ 0 (mod 3) < 2 10 s = 3 c + 3 c ≡ 1 (mod 3) :> 2 11 3 c + 3 c ≡ 2 (mod 3) SUPERCOILED TANGLES AND STICK NUMBERS OF 2-BRIDGE LINKS 5 Figure 5. Isotopy to smooth tangle Proof. We will treat the case where c ≡ 1 (mod 3) first. (This is the case where oi is connected to ui+1 and ui is connected to oi+1 for all i.) The behavior of the new edges near the vertices and self-crossings of the core allow us to count the number of crossings in the constructed integral tangle. The core has m+2 edges yielding m+1 internal vertices v1; : : : ; vm+1 and m self-crossings. The half-twist at each internal vertex vi of the core contributes one crossing to the integral tangle. Further, each self-crossing of the core yields two sets of parallel strands in the tangle that cross each other. Such a conformation contributes a full twist, or two crossings, to the integral tangle (as in Figure 5). Thus in the tangle there are a total of c = (m + 1) + 2m = 3m + 1 crossings. Since each of the m + 2 edges of the core corresponds to 2 sticks of the integral tangle, the stick number of the tangle is s = 2m + 4. These 2 10 equations show that s = 3 c + 3 in the case c ≡ 1 (mod 3). Figure 6. Base Constructions To construct a tangle with crossing number c ≡ 0 (mod 3), we con- nect o1 to o2 and u1 to u2 as in Figure 6, and leave the remaining connections the same. This uses the same number of sticks as the previous case, but reduces the crossing number of the tangle by one. 2 Reasoning as above gives the desired result, s = 3 c + 4. 6 ERIK INSKO AND ROLLAND TRAPP To construct a tangle with crossing number c ≡ 2 (mod 3), we add a new vertex w that lies below u2 and o1. The vertex w should be chosen so that the edge from it to o2 passes between the two edges adjacent to u2 as in the third image of Figure 6.